“DO YOU JUST like to make my life difficult, Jennifer?” Morgan said, placing an affectionate hand on the forensic pathologist’s shoulder as she sat next to her Monday morning. Calum West and Terry Bates also were seated at the round table at the Bodmin incident room. DCI Penwarren sat opposite them and nodded to Dr. Duncan, the talented blond pathologist whom he sometimes wished were older…or himself younger. He was not alone in the force in admiring her, both as a professional and as a woman.
“I’ve read your report, Jennifer, but why don’t you give it to us directly.”
“Right. As you know, I discovered trace evidence on the cushion we suspect was used to suffocate Mary Trevean—a terrifying way to die, by the way. But it was too faint for our Truro lab to analyze. We sent it off to consulting specialists in Bristol whom headquarters in Exeter have under contract. They are extremely busy and the DNA analysis has taken far longer than I’d hoped. But we have it now.”
“Please…” Penwarren said.
“The sample on one side is Mary Trevean’s sputum. Perfect DNA match. No doubt she coughed it up as she was gasping for breath.”
“Wouldn’t that have been expected?” Morgan asked.
“To me, to Calum, and to you, Morgan, yes, but maybe not to the killer. Still, it’s evidence, which Calum’s people did a fine job of protecting, and it needed to be analyzed and confirmed. And in any event, that’s turned out not to be the issue here. The issue is that the DNA on the opposite side of the cushion, the side pressed by the killer, does not match that of your suspect, Jeremy Rhys-Jones. Of that, there can be no question.”
“So, whose is it? Did you check the National DNA Database?”
“Of course, Morgan, and there’s no match on record.”
“Why is nothing ever easy…?”
“But there’s something I did not tell you in my call yesterday, Morgan. I collected a swab of semen from Mary Trevean’s vagina in my initial examination of her body. It’s Rhys-Jones’s.”
“What?” Morgan barked.
“They were lovers?” Calum asked.
“I can only say they had sex. I can’t even tell you if it was pre- or post-mortem.”
“Jesus wept,” Morgan mumbled.
“Okay, clearly someone else was involved in Mary Trevean’s death,” Penwarren said after a pause. “We don’t know who. And we will no doubt discover who was responsible. But in the meantime, Morgan, I have a suggestion: if you can pull it off with Rhys-Jones and his solicitor, I’d like you to lean in hard on his sexual relationship with Mary Trevean. Let him know we have his DNA when it’s the right moment. See what happens next.”
“What’s the point if he isn’t the murderer?” Terry asked.
Penwarren smiled. “Because I suspect that in the face of that semen evidence he will deny responsibility for her murder adamantly but confess to lesser charges: namely, his attacks on Trevega House. Also, Rhys-Jones has a history of using women. I suspect Mary Trevean was just his latest. Morgan?”
She scowled. “Oh yes, I think I can handle him…”
LESS THAN AN hour later, Davies was back at the Camborne station. Terry had been her driver; she was a demon at the wheel.
Rhys-Jones and Moira Hennessy sat at the tarnished old steel interview table. Someone had provided a third chair. Morgan ignored it and paced around them and the table. It was something she’d learned over the years: enclose the space within which the suspect exists. Hem him in.
“I trust you two have had time to get to know each other?”
Rhys-Jones smirked; Hennessy nodded.
“Oh good. It’s important that you trust each other. That’s only right. May I assume, Jeremy, that you and your lawyer fully understand why you are here and the crimes of which you are considered to be a person of interest?”
“He has not been formally charged,” Hennessy replied, folding her arms across her chest. “And the period during which you can keep my client detained without charging is about to expire.” She was wearing the same black suit but today had a white lace-topped camisole beneath the jacket. Morgan wondered if the camisole was designed to gain Rhys-Jones’s appreciation. There was a hint of cleavage. Hennessy, who was rather short, was also wearing black three-inch heels with a thick ankle strap. Domination, Morgan thought. This girl doesn’t miss a trick.
“Correct, Ms. Hennessy. Right now, Mr. Rhys-Jones is being held, but has not yet been charged, for a serious passport violation which, when substantiated as it certainly will be, could put him away for ten years. Formal charges, as you know, can only be made by the Crown Prosecution Service. My job is simply to interview. That’s why we’re here.
“And in that regard let me say that in the last few days we have uncovered some interesting DNA evidence about the relationship between your client and the late Mrs. Mary Trevean. Of course, we also have that interesting handprint of Jeremy’s on Mrs. Trevean’s sitting room wall. As you know, that is already in evidence.”
“So he visited his landlady,” Hennessy said. “What is your point?”
Morgan smiled. “Oh, he wasn’t just a visitor, Moira; your client also had sex with Mrs. Trevean. Isn’t that right, Jeremy?”
Rhys-Jones looked pole-axed.
His young lawyer blinked but recovered quickly. “And what is that evidence, Inspector?”
“I must say it is somewhat unseemly: semen swabbed from her vagina. He had sex with her, either before or after she died. The timing is uncertain. Unpleasant conundrum, isn’t it? I have the pathologist’s report right here for you to examine, Ms. Hennessy, if you’d like…”
Rhys-Jones vaulted from his chair. “I did not kill Mary!”
“So you’ve said before…”
“That will be quite enough, Jeremy,” the lawyer warned. “Sit down. Now!”
He obeyed.
“Yes, we’d made love. She was avid and we’d had a lot of wine. I went to see her again early that next morning, Friday. She’d wanted me to spend the night with her but I couldn’t. She didn’t answer when I knocked but her car was in the yard. I tried to open her door but it was locked. So was the rear one. Then I looked in the windows and saw her there, on the carpet. I panicked and ran.”
Morgan was behind him and leaned close: “Being a fugitive is becoming quite a habit with you, isn’t it?”
“You’ve said enough, Mr. Rhys-Jones,” Hennessy warned. But Morgan pressed.
“And the crimes at Trevega House, for which we already have your prints and DNA? What about them?”
“Jeremy!” Hennessy warned again.
“I was trying to scare them off! Those people don’t belong there! Trevega belongs to me and Caprice!”
“Caprice?” Hennessy asked, eyes wide, looking at Morgan.
Morgan finally sat at the table and leaned toward Jeremy. “Caprice, your mother, has been dead for years…”
“No! She is still there! I know she is. She’s waiting for me!”
Hennessy stared at her client.
“Did Caprice make you her lover, Jeremy, like Mary Trevean did? Is that why you still seek her?” Morgan’s voice was warm, caring.
“Don’t answer that!”
Rhys-Jones collapsed into sobs. “Caprice loves me…”
Moira Hennessy stood. “We are done here, Inspector!”
“Oh, I suspect not, counsellor, I suspect not,” Morgan said as she rose and left the room.
Penwarren was waiting for her in the corridor. He put an arm around her. “Well done, Morgan, I knew you could…”
“With respect, Sir, I hate breaking people…”
Derek Martin said, “I will agree to have Mr. Rhys-Jones charged with both illegal entry and malicious intent and endangerment at the Trevega estate, but not murder.”
CALUM DROVE MORGAN back to Bodmin to collect her car. Penwarren had dismissed her for the day. He knew she’d hit empty.
“Do you want to talk, luv?” Calum asked as they cleared the A30 exit for Redruth and raced north.
“No. And slow down! I don’t want to die in your damned turbo Volvo…”
Calum sighed and lifted his foot from the accelerator.
After a long silence, Morgan said: “That man is damaged, Calum. Badly. Part of him is disassociated from his day-to-day existence. He lives in two realities. He needs help.”
“He’s committed a series of crimes, beyond entering the country illegally. He’s a danger.”
“I know. But he didn’t kill Trevean.”
“He almost killed Lee.”
“We don’t know that either, yet I have a feeling that he did drop that rock and that it was a terrible mistake, one that horrified him. I am almost certain it was not his intent to harm her. Just another threat, but it went wrong. He doesn’t have murder in him, Calum. I know murderers. He’s a weakling, a badly twisted one. I think he beat his subsequent partners because they were not Caprice. No woman could measure up to his vision of her. Dr. Duncan told me that her examination suggests that the sex with Mary Trevean was violent. Maybe that thrilled her, maybe he was punishing her for coming on to him. Or for not being Caprice. We’ll never know. But it is consistent with his past. I need to message Dr. Knight.”
In the empty Bodmin incident room, after Calum had left her off to go home, she emailed her thoughts to Dr. Knight.
His answer came back in moments: “Yes. And you should work for me.”
AT THE BLISLAND Inn, she ordered a take-out curry and avoided Garry. Back at home she’d finished the curry and her third vodka tonic while listening to Art Blakey’s “Jazz Messengers” on her CD player.
THERE WAS A loud knock at her door. She realized she’d dozed off. The CD player was silent. She had no idea what the time was. She looked for a weapon but knew she had none.
“Who are you and what do you want!” she yelled at the door.
“Morgan, dear lady, it’s just me, Garry. You’re safe. I was worried about you tonight when you slipped away from the inn…”
She opened the door. “Jesus, Garry. You frightened the shit out of me. No one ever comes here.”
“Maybe they should…”
Morgan was trying to clear her head. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He stepped inside and embraced her.
“It means I should like to be welcomed and to look after you, Morgan.”
She resisted. “I don’t need anyone looking after me!”
He hugged her again, gently. “Are you sure?”
“It’s been a brutal day,” she said relaxing into his shoulder.
“Care to share it with me?”
“No, let’s just be quiet and be with each other…”